I thought maybe I'll have some fun and do more of the outposts. I'm at 48% and wanted to go a bit further and unlock some stuff because it's fun to have more stuff to use in these battles, plus I need crystals. But the game will not allow me to do this.

3-4 outposts will be under attack, my castle will only give me 1 or 2 days at the most before I have to go back to insta-surrender, then the outposts under attack get stronger. Worst part is that the outpost will say 8/20 difficulty or 10/20 and be nearly impossible to beat with enemy units that I've never seen and are entirely too strong for anything I have.

I realize they are trying to force people to buy crystals but I'm just not interested. I already paid for the game so I'm not giving them any more money unless they fix the game up a bit.

Is there any reasonable way around this or do I just have to hack the game in order to play it properly?

Hint: much easier or at leadt quicker to win a siege vs. a skirmish or defense. The research perks are more important than crystals. This is not "pay to win" I made no in-app purchases to dominate and max out everything possible.

Each hero has very different strengths, so you might want to try using a different hero or strategy, also if you haven't done so already, focus on upgrading your units, walls, Crystal and turrets, they are more important than crafting gear most of the time

Save 100 crystals then upload to cloud. Spend the crystals on the blacksmith. If u don't get something u wanted just download cloud data. It like having infinite crystals to a point. U can get tons of legendary gear. Also go for a grandmaster elf. They have high evasive skills and can cut through armor and blocking enemies. Plus the slow time ability is over powered

Upgrade knights fully,and create a tank character, I've won seiges by simply sitting there and letting the enemies attack ,e while my siege archers picked off the wall units and the knights obliterate the walls (for this to work you need the knights to stay near the walls and you have to bait the enemies to you while staying across the map, obviously it's not perfect but it usually works)

I just use my elf druid with bonus command points, build up bannermen and captains while protecting myself and my units with an army of druids, and slowly build up to 2 graybeards and whatever other wall unit that is most effective against the enemy's units. Research the 100s upgrade for that unit type, then send out a war elephant and some units of that same unit type. Works first or second time.